


Pillow Talk

by kaeorin



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Hotel
Genre: Blood, F/M, Murder, Panic Attacks, Proceed with caution, Sex and death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 05:52:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10564941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: After an especially bad panic attack, there’s really only one thing you can think of that can bring you back to normal. And so you draw in a steadying breath, look your lover square in his face, and ask, “How would you kill me?”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on my writing blog (grufflepuff-writes-stuff) sometime last summer, and it got a ton of notes! Which was awesome! I'm now in the process of copying all of my writing from there to here, just to keep all my bases covered.
> 
> This has been rattling around the inside of my head since the start of the month but I’m only just now getting around to finishing it. There’s talk of murder in here, and blood, and suicide, but the sex is consensual and non-coerced, at least? If you can get through American Horror Story you’ll probably be fine.

You were choking.

The walls closed in until they crushed you. There was no escape, no air, no hope. Your heart pounded in your chest like a creature trying to escape a cage. It was too fast. Any minute now it would explode, filling your chest with blood and shreds of tissue, and you would assuredly die. Already there was a lead weight on your chest, caving it in, crushing you. You couldn’t sit up straight, couldn’t draw a breath, couldn’t stop the choking sobs. You were the only one in the room, but you could feel every foul presence in the hotel bearing down on you. Each one licked its lips and bared its teeth and stretched out its grasping claws towards you.

Dimly, you registered the sound of the door creaking open, followed by light graceful footsteps that you would likely have recognized had you been in a better mental state. As it was, you barely even noticed when he sat beside you on the bed. When he stroked your back, you flinched away. He hated it when you flinched away, but you couldn’t help it.

“You’re alright, darling,” he said. The low, even sound of his voice cut through the panicked haze in your mind, but it did nothing to stop your heart from racing. “Breathe with me. Count to ten.”

If you’d had a breath to spare, you might have laughed at the absurdity of the situation: a murderous spirit sitting next to you in a haunted hotel room, caressing your back and asking you to breathe with him. He had not needed to draw a breath in decades. But you heard the sounds, saw his chest rise and fall out of the corner of your eyes. He counted slowly, taking deep, measured inhalations, and before long you found yourself following suit. He counted over and over again, letting the easy cadence of his voice soothe your senses. Gradually, the walls eased away from you. The weight on your chest began to lessen. The adrenaline that had once flooded your muscles ebbed away, leaving you feeling cold and dull. It seemed that your every muscle was trembling. He had not stopped stroking your back. When you sniffled and ducked your head to wipe your eyes, he cleared his throat.

“Are you back with me, dearest?” His voice sounded fond, but you couldn’t make yourself look at him. You’d been having these attacks all your life, since long before the first time you’d set foot in the hotel. People had always reassured you that panic attacks happened to plenty of people, that they weren’t anything to be ashamed of, but you didn’t really believe them. It wasn’t normal for your heart to threaten to explode. It wasn’t normal to feel like you were drowning in molten lead. So you’d always locked yourself away in the middle of an attack, hidden somewhere dark and tight and lonely, and let your irrationality run its course. It was better than letting anyone else lay eyes on you, letting them look at you with pity or ridicule, or worse—concern.

But James always knew. Maybe it was because he took such pleasure in the panic of his victims. Maybe it was because he was so closely linked with his hotel. Maybe hidden spirits told him. But he always knew when you were trying to lock yourself away, and he always came to your side like this. As much as you appreciated it, it was also a little mortifying. James Patrick March was a man who could take half a dozen lives, wipe the blood off of his face, and go to a fancy dinner with a smile on his face, but you sometimes couldn’t even walk down a hallway without being seized by some nameless terror? It was pathetic.

As though he knew what you were thinking—because of course he knew what you were thinking—he cupped your cheek to turn your face towards him. When you finally met his gaze, his smile lit up his entire face. “There you are,” he said, and tucked some of your hair behind your ear. “What can I do?”

The temptation to shrug him off and flee was strong. All you truly wanted to do was stay here in your room for the rest of the night. These sorts of attacks had a way of destroying you, of completely draining you for the rest of the night. He had other things to do, you knew: people to visit, victims to claim. Even dead, James was not one for idleness. But you’d tried telling him that before, and it only ever resulted in fights. You weren’t feeling strong enough to fight right now.

So you swallowed, your tongue thick in your mouth, and drew in a steadying breath. There was one thing that you often found yourself turning to after these attacks. One constant that, in some horrific and disgusting way, always seemed to comfort you. James was a murderer. There was no escaping that. He was a man who killed people for pleasure. He had built a hotel for the express purpose of hiding his kills. When a person checked in to the Cortez, even today, years after James’s death, there was no guarantee that they would ever check out again. And yet here you were, living and breathing right here on the bed beside the worst monster you’d ever known, and he was caressing your back. There had to be a reason for it. Not long ago, you’d come to the conclusion that he was simply biding his time. He had to be plotting out just the right death for you, and you had begun to wonder just what it was that he had planned. The thought that your death could be so close at hand—and at the hand of someone you cared about so much—was…comforting.

“Would you… How would you kill me?” You did not surprise him often, but when you looked at him, his eyes were wide. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t. I know you’ve got at least half a dozen gruesome deaths planned out in your head. I know you probably picture what a person’s insides look like before you’ve even learned their name.” He didn’t even try to protest. You both knew it would have been foolish. So you nudged him gently in the side. “Please?”

He cleared his throat. “I'll—ah—admit, I have imagined it.” He sounded uncharacteristically abashed. “Quite a few different ways, actually. Fire. Electricity. Once, I imagined closing you up in one of my walls, so I could hear you slowly slip away.” He fell silent for a moment, and a chill ran up your spine. It was one thing to imagine him having such thoughts, but it was something else entirely to know for certain. And tight spaces were especially bad. Sometimes a ride in an elevator was enough to make your throat start closing up. “I’ve thought about strangling you. Close, intimate. I could watch the light fade from your eyes even as I felt your pulse slow and falter.”

He closed his fingers around your throat, but did not squeeze. You merely lifted your chin to grant him easier access. He should have frightened you. You knew what happened to those unfortunate enough to die within these walls. You knew the man’s reputation, his history. He could very easily kill you and not think twice. But you were unafraid. There was no point in being afraid of him. If his plan was to kill you, you would die. The fact that you had lived here in his hotel for several months now was fairly reassuring, but you had long since made peace with the knowledge that he could kill you. Some days, you found yourself longing for it.

He brushed his thumb along your tender throat and you swallowed.

“But ultimately, I decided that none of those would do. There’s such warmth in you. It would be an atrocity to let you grow cold without enjoying it one last time.” He moved in close to press a kiss to the spot where your jawline met your neck, just behind your ear. This time, when you shivered, it wasn’t with fear. He kept his face close to yours, nuzzling along your neck. “So what I decided is that I’d bring you to my room one night, late, with the full moon shining, and I’d ply you with wine until you were warm and silly.”

That didn’t sound right. “No, you… you don’t like killing drunks…”

He rested his hand on your knee and shushed you, his breath hot against your ear. “Ordinarily, you’d be right. Alcohol dulls the senses, and I do so enjoy watching my victims realize what’s happening.” He nipped at your earlobe. “But when you’ve been properly intoxicated, you’re so wonderfully warm and pliant.” His hand slid between your thighs. Even through your jeans, it felt so intimate, so erotic that you let your knees fall apart. He hummed appreciatively before continuing on. “And so I would very slowly remove each and every article of clothing that hid you from me and then I would plant myself between your thighs, and I’d not come up for air until I’d coaxed you to climax at least three times.” His voice grew rough. Hungry. You knew that voice.

“Well…I supposed that would only be decent of you,” you managed as your cheeks grew hot. “Is that…a consideration you give to all your victims?”

He growled and pushed you backwards, straddling your hips and pinning your wrists to the mattress on either side of your head. “Oh, that is a consideration reserved expressly for you, my dear.” He ground his pelvis against yours and sucked on your neck. When you whimpered, he growled again and slanted his mouth across yours. Your heart fluttered, but there was no panic this time. He explored your mouth, laid claim to it as he’d done so many times before. You should have been absolutely exhausted, but your body was responding to him. Each time he moved, he stoked the fire in your belly.

When he finally pulled away from you, it was only to slide his hand between your bodies and work the button on your pants. He grinned, and in his eyes flashed all the countless decades of wickedness that you knew he had seen. He must have seen something in your eyes that excited him, too, because without another word he yanked your pants and underwear over your hips, down your legs, and dropped them beside the bed. He grasped your knees and pulled them apart to expose your arousal. You couldn’t quite find it in yourself to be shy. Not when he was looking at you like that.

Normally, James took pleasure in teasing you. If this were an ordinary night, he might have slid one finger along your slit, testing your wetness, and then tease you for being so ready for him already. Or he might have merely frozen in place, looking at you, forcing you to beg for him to touch you. But tonight was different. Tonight he parted your lips gently, gave you a grin that rattled you and made your stomach tighten, and then closed his mouth around you. Your whole body shuddered even as your hips arched up off the bed to press closer to him. Normally you preferred a little preamble: gentle kisses, knowing bites on the insides of your thighs. But his mouth and tongue were stealing your breath. Maybe it was because your awareness was so heightened from the attack. Maybe it was because he’d just confessed to fantasizing about this. Maybe it was the way he slid his fingers inside you and curled and twisted them just right, but it didn’t take long at all before he had you gripping at his hair and trying not to scream too loud while you rode out the pleasure.

When you finally caught your breath, you realized that he was still down there. He worked his fingers in and out of you lazily, watching you with that smug, pleased expression that he knew drove you crazy. “Shall I continue?"

“Is this how you’d kill me? You’d just do this until I had a heart attack or just…stopped breathing?” Was it strange to still be hung up on that with your lover settled between your legs? Probably. But then, you had long since passed the point of no return when it came to accepting the strange things in your life. Why stop now?

James smirked and crawled back up to you, spreading himself out above your body. He kissed you, and when you tasted yourself on his mouth, it was almost enough to make you come again. “Not quite. I’m a little more selfish than that, you see. Watching you in the throes of pleasure, it…does things to me. You know that.” He ground his pelvis against you again, rubbing his own arousal against your clit. You gasped at the feeling. The fabric of his slacks was rough against your sensitive nub, but you spread your legs a little wider, pressed yourself a little closer. He nipped your earlobe and groaned out his approval. His voice was thick as he reached between your bodies again, this time to free his erection. When he rubbed it against you, coating it in your wetness, it was like you’d spent your entire life waiting for that feeling. You threw your head back and whimpered his name. Would he make you beg?

He didn’t move except to press his lips to your throat. After a moment, he took your tender flesh between his teeth and bit down, hard. Ordinarily, or at least with an ordinary man, it would have been enough to make you cry out, maybe even pull away from him. But tonight it was a reminder of where you were. It reminded you that you had already placed yourself at his mercy. If he chose to rip you apart here and now, there was nothing you could do but embrace it. You trembled beneath him, but couldn’t keep yourself from moving your hips, grinding against his erection.

“Such a lovely girl,” he rasped, running his tongue along the bite as though to soothe it. “You do unspeakable things to me.”

“I want you.” It was all you could manage. “Please, sir… Won’t you take me?”

Over the years, he had grown accustomed to coarse language. Watching lovers from the shadows as they made use of his hotel had even given him a certain appreciation of modern bedroom talk. But this, you knew, was what really got to him. Nothing spurred him to action so fast as when you were shy and proper.

And so you were not especially surprised when his eyes darkened and his lips curled back into a snarling grin. “What kind of monster would ever turn down such a request?” he gritted out. The only warning he gave was when he pulled back ever so slightly, to line up his cock with your entrance, and then with one graceful movement, he had buried himself deep inside you. You couldn’t breathe for a moment. Your entire body tensed, your muscles singing out in that distinct combination of pain and pleasure. You choked out his name before he closed his mouth over yours and swallowed your cries.

“If I were to kill you,” he said when he finally pulled away again. “Then I could not do it without taking you one last time. To feel you shudder around me, beneath me…that is true pleasure.” He sank his teeth into your shoulder.

“But killing—” Things were hazy. It was hard to make sense of the thoughts tumbling through your head. If he ever did get you as drunk as he wanted, could you survive something like this, even if he wasn’t actively trying to kill you?

“Killing is exquisite, yes.” He sounded impatient. A little out of breath. That didn’t make sense; he didn’t need to breathe. He filled his hands with your breasts, pounding relentlessly at you while he rolled your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. “But if I were forced to choose between your little deaths and all my potential future victims… That would be…a quandary.”

“You must be the only man in the world who can use such big words at a time like this.” Your breathlessness made sense, you told yourself. All you could do at this point was grip his forearms tightly and give in to the way he felt inside you.

“You inspire me,” he said simply, and sat up a bit. He hiked your legs up over his shoulders, pressing forward until you felt the strain in your muscles. He dropped one hand to circle your clit with his thumb. But when you choked out his name—a warning—he gave a low laugh and stopped.

“James…” You whined. In response, he merely drove himself still deeper inside you.

“I believe you asked me a question, and I intend to answer it.” But instead, he thrust a few more times. Your every nerve was aflame. This was a hell of a way to die. “If this were the night I planned to kill you, I would roll onto my back and pull you with me, so I could watch you as you took your pleasure from me.” But the only move he made was a few easy, gentle thrusts. He was close, you knew. You could hear it in his voice and feel it in the way he throbbed inside you. You couldn’t tear your eyes off of him. He was watching you intently, the barest hint of a smile curling the corners of his mouth. He began touching you again, circling slowly, with a feather-light touch. “And just as you reached the edge, as you teetered over into orgasm, I would reach up and slice your lovely throat with a knife so sharp you wouldn’t feel the cut. The last thing you would feel on this side of death would be your muscles contracting around me. And your blood would fall over me like a warm rain.”

“And the sheets. Poor Miss Evers,” you gasped, your hands gripping in the sheets. So close… “James, please…”

He had no mercy. “I suppose I could put down plastic over the sheets,” he said thoughtfully. You hadn’t thought it was possible, but his touch grew even lighter. “Would that make you feel better?”

How could he possibly expect you to answer right now? Your body strained towards him, trembling and desperate, and he just…took it in. Perhaps this was why he’d kept you alive so long. Perhaps he took delight in torturing you in other ways. “Anything you want, Mr. March, just…please…” you managed, though your voice did trail off in a whine.

“Well, when you put it that way…” His voice sounded strained, as though he was still holding back, but he began moving in earnest, filling you more deeply and touching you more firmly. It didn’t take long. You could feel your pleasure building, and choked out a warning. He didn’t falter. Soon yet another orgasm crashed over you. You sank your teeth into your lower lip as James drew your pleasure out, but you still couldn’t keep from groaning out. Only moments later, you felt a familiar throbbing, and his movements became a bit less graceful. He growled your name as he came, and then collapsed on top of you. You were still writhing, and had to grip him tightly just to keep from falling apart.

“God,” you whispered. His low, rumbling chuckle rolled against your ear like thunder.

“'Sir’ will do just fine, my dear. Or even just ‘Mr. March’, if you’d prefer.” He raised up onto his elbows and caressed your cheek. “I hope you’re feeling better.” You nodded, not entirely trusting your voice. He must have understood, because he kissed your cheek tenderly. He lay still for a little while longer, just sort of…looking at you.

Life was strange. This place was strange. But…it was also so good? You ventured a shy smile. He really had made it easy to completely forget about that attack. Somehow being here, pinned beneath him, having just listened to a detailed account of how he had planned to kill you, made you feel more secure than you had felt in years. If ever. Your head spun at the sheer weirdness of it all, but he just continued to look at you. When he finally pulled out of you, gently and with a kiss on your shoulder, he moved to stretch out on the bed beside you. “Now don’t you go getting any ideas. I don’t actually plan on killing you. Not for a very long time, anyway.” He touched your cheek. “As long as I have a say in this, you will be safe here at the Cortez.”

“Thank you.” It was scarcely a whisper. James was, by now, an expert at recognizing human darkness, but he had not yet glimpsed yours. He spoke of safety, thought he was reassuring you. In a way, he was. None of the other presences in the hotel was to harm you, and that truly was a reassuring thought. It was just… You still had yet to tell him exactly why you had checked into the Hotel Cortez all those months ago, what you had originally intended. Your plan still nagged at the back of your mind, especially in the days and hours immediately following one of your panic attacks. You were patient. You could wait a little while longer. But eventually you would get your way. And now you were faced with the decision whether to remain here in the hotel for the rest of eternity, or to kill yourself somewhere else, and hasten your departure from this realm. You reached out to smooth his hair back into place and offered him a watery smile.

You loved him so very much.


End file.
